The boy steadied himself on the branch, his hand on the trunk as he looked down to the yellowish grass and the other on the thick wood he stood upon. Below the escarpment the tree was rooted in, it shown out to a vast lowland clear expanse drenched in the setting sun's beautiful light, a dark orange in a vastness that swallowed up his entire world.

He watched it, wonder in his little red eyes and on his round face. The wind fluttered through his light hair and was cool on his pale skin. He wore an untucked oversized blue button up nearly reaching his thighs, a light-colored poncho covering most of it, and his pants were black jeans, patched by their age and torn at his left knee. He stood there, thin and pale, allowing himself to take it all in.

"Thomas!"

The boy nearly jumped with surprise, but stopped himself when he realized it was a long way down. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Sospes calling up to him. The man had his clawed hands cupped beside his mouth like a primitive megaphone, "The hell's you think you're doing boy?! get down now!"

"But the view is-"

"Now!"

"Okay..." the boy started the descent back down, shimmying his way over to the trunk and using the branches to maneuver himself down, albeit slowly. Sospes stood under looking up at Thomas with his arms crossed.

The man to anyone else aside the boy was a sight indeed, a mixture between orc and harpy. He had small red feathers running all the way down his arms and sharp talon like claws on his fingers.

His skin was green and his muscles large, with a dark greenish skin tone. What hair he would have was replaced with the feathers, leading all the way down to his back. He wore a long duster coat to cover all of this and a dark undershirt along with dark dress pants. His hat was a gaucho style, completely brown and with a telescope crown.

Thomas dropped to the ground, and stood hastily to meet Sospes gaze, "Um..." the boy looked away then back, his red eyes glistening, "I'm sorry."

"Boy."

"I won't do it again."

"Truly? the definition of sorry means that you shan't do so again. But you've done this exact thing and said that before."

"I..." he rubbed his hair, "o-okay, I'm sorry for real this time!" Thomas stomped his boot on the ground, "For real real this time!" Sospes kept staring, "I would've been up there for a short while anyway, sir." the boy said looking away.

Sospes tilted his head slightly at him, "You still defied my orders, but...I suppose we've been traveling for some time. You're in dire need of something to do and can't be blamed for having fun."

"Does that mean I can go back up?" Thomas quickly asked.

"No."

"Aw."

"Come, I'll teach you to light a fire."

"I already know how."

"You do not."

The boy stomped his foot, "Yes, I do."

Sospes shook his head and turned and walked back up towards the small, shaded part of the cliff where their things were stored and unloaded for the incoming night, "Then you will show me." He almost smiled as he continued up.

They kept their things in satchels and packs made from the skins of animals. Their cookware was rusted with age but provided food that was edible enough. Two bedrolls were laid out next to each other under a jutted-out part of the cliff that covered them from the summer sky. They always kept small packs with essentials on their belts for if they needed to make a run for it.

Sospes watched the boy as he made his way up, always so curious and with a penchant to somehow be everywhere at once. Merely ten years of age and already he was much too swift for his guardian to ever hope to keep up. Perhaps Sospes was getting old, or maybe something else.

The pit had carefully placed stones around it, and inside a squarely built pile of dead branches like a miniature log cabin. Sospes was collecting them in the moments he'd left the boy unattended.

They both knelt by the pit, Sospes looking towards Thomas as the boy looked at the pieces of kindling under the sticks. "Now then?" Sospes said expectantly as he pulled out the lighter and handed it to him.

Studying it, the boy looked up to him, eyes wide as plates, then back to the tool. "Do I just flick it like..." he pressed down, and a small flame flared up, surprising the little one to the point he almost dropped it.

"Keep your hand away from the flame, hold it a bit to the side. There you go, now light the tiny sticks and be careful not to topple the big ones. There you are." The kindling burned and soon the small fire became a big one. It flared fully as the sun set and the cold set in on the two. They huddled together, it was freezing very badly, the boy hugged several cloaks over his small body as Sospes held one half-so over himself.

They had only one horse to their name, which carried all of their things along with Thomas and Sospes in shifts in the day. The old mare was laying asleep without a care by the fire. Every once in a while, she would lift her head into Thomas lap, and he would scratch her face to get the bugs off her.

Thomas was unsure as to where exactly they'd go next, first they were up north for a really long time, then one day Mr. Sospes said that they needed to head west into the desert. So, they did.

"You're getting stronger," Sospes said interrupting the boy's thoughts. "I remember a time where you could barely walk, now you are climbing trees and outpacing me." He sat towards the fire and tended to it.

"Thank you...sir," the boy rubbed his neck.

"Is something on your mind?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Are we still going west?"

"Indeed."

"Away from civilization?"

"Yes."

"Sir?"

"What?"

"Why is civilization bad?"

Sospes turned from his tendering of the flames at the boy. He glanced back to the fire then to the boy and said, "I think you know the answer."

"Because...bad men who own a lot of things come in and ruin things for people like us?"

The hybrid nodded.

"And they own stuff like lots of money and other stuff like steel and gold?"

Again, his guardian nodded.

"Then...why do people let them do what they do?"

"Some seek a better life for themselves within the walls of those establishments, others, the bolder of them, they try and cut out some of that wealth for themselves," Sospes said. He had turned back to the fire and threw several large sticks from the pile on top. "They wish to live in a world where they do not have to worry for things such as food and the cold."

"That's a bad thing?"

"Stop being a smart ass, the point I am making is that becoming a slave under those men is something I wish not for myself nor you."

"Were you a slave?"

The question gave him pause. The hybrid glanced back at the boy, then to the fire again. He threw in a few more branches. The boy seemed to have realized something when this happened because he next followed up with, "Well...um...I understand, never mind."

"No, I was not a slave, and...it is alright."

The wind swept around them without any trees to slow it. The boy sat there, shaking slightly. A strange beauty to him, his jaw already prominent and his eyes like piercing blood. The last hope for his salvation.

"Could you..." a misty breath escaped the boy's mouth, "tell me a story?"

"Something new?" Sospes said.

"I wanna hear about..." he thought for a moment, "the...war of two worlds." He drew the cloaks closer to himself like a bundle.

Sospes nodded, "I haven't told that one for some time, very well." He left the fire and went next to Thomas and looked at him. The fire cast an orange sheen on the two of them. The boy watched.

"Nine years ago, a great and powerful god decided to create a portal to another world filled of humans, this magical travel plainly called the GATE. It was through this discovery that the Empire decided to send a force to invade and conquer these people. But...those people defeated them, destroyed them."

"What were they called again?" Thomas said.

"There are many humans who call themselves separate titles among other things in that world, but the two we speak of are known as the Japanese and Americans."

"They must be really strong," Thomas pulled his legs closer to himself.

"Oh, were they. Like I said, the Empire was destroyed, and a new government rose in its place. A republic. They bent the knee to these two nations and now a...uneasy alliance rests between the two and them."

"What was the war like?"

"It was not as if saving a princess young one, nor fighting a dragon. They used machines, and a machine to work that machine. The Empire had no such thing, and for that it was thoroughly and inevitably defeated."

"We've seen them before, right? the humans with the eyes that do this?" the boy squinted his eyes and placed his fingers on his eyes and widened them to make it look like they were slanted.

Sospes put his hand up, "Y-Yes...but don't do that around them."

Thomas was getting so excited that he sat up in a crouching position, "And the Americans? those people in green?"

"It's called camouflage. They have no need for armor most of the time due to their...well weaponry."

"Cool..."

Sospes looked at him strangely, "Well I hope you don't think that's true."

"Huh?"

"War is not something a person can simply define as..."cool."

Thomas shrank slightly, "But you always tell me stories about war."

"Simply to teach, not for such matters as "coolness," is that not from the speech of the American's? where did you hear such a word?"

"I...uh...read it somewhere. Back in the city a few weeks ago."

Sospes shook his hand, "Never you mind. The issue at hand is war."

"I said I was sorry..."

Sospes was holding his hands out as if some sort of diplomat in a strange land, "I know, but you mustn't think that way when it comes to this subject. It is not something I wish you to admire."

"I don't."

"Good. Remember this, Thomas. Only the foolish and those who have not fought admire war. Yet when the time comes to fight, they are quick to leave the battlefield."

Thomas rubbed his head, "Because...they're cowards?"

"Not quite, for they are men who discover a reality which they were neither prepared nor wishing for. That or...those men know fully of war."

"Who are those men?"

"The old men in opulent suits and armor, who convince the young to go and fight for them. They tell these young and foolish that they fight for a cause that is noble and just. That they are a..." Sospes thought for a moment, "a superior race, a superior nation, or a superior...way...of well anything. Whatever lie works, they will use for their own benefit."

Thomas seemed taken away by this, "Why? what kind of people would do that?"

"It.." he looked about the area. The wind howled, and the coyotes were silent for even they did not want to strike out into the cold. "Because...it is a..." he stopped again and sighed, "they...the men I speak of, have their reasons. Gaining resources...land...but it's an excuse. An excuse for the ultimate form of evil. For all men will bend their will towards the act of killing each other for the sake of nothing."

Thomas thought about this, he unfurled the cloaks around him and leaned forward, "They're...just...evil?"

"They always have been. In history, there has always been more punishment than crime commited, Thomas."

"Are..." he paused.

"What?"

"Are they the bad guys?"

"Yes. They are the bad guys."

In the morning, the sun bore on them like a hovering mother. Its rays beating at their backs in the early noon like a hot whip. The jagged and rough cliffs nearby Thomas felt at the sweat on the back of his shirt pooling. Sospes rode on the horse at a steady pace behind him. The dirt path they were on was an old one in the steady expanse of the plains. Free of the little grass and plants. Cleared and dug years ago.

Sometimes, Thomas would wonder about the boys and girls in this land. He would imagine the games they would play as the men worked the road and the mothers scolded them for running too far.

"What'll we do when we get there?" Thomas asked, jogging next to Sospes.

"To the west?"

"Yes."

Sospes took his hat off and waved it at his sweating face, "Reckon we'll find a place and settle it."

"For how long?"

"However long we want."

"Because you've said that before."

"I did?"

"Back in the northeast. You said we'd settle for a long time. But...we only stayed a year."

Sospes looked at him, "You know why we left. Too-"

"Too much civilization."

"Is there something else about it?"

"What if civilizations in the west?"

"It's not."

"What if comes?"

"I'll worry about it, never you mind."

"Okay..."

"Okay what?"

Tyranus slowed slightly, "Will there be little boys and girls?"

"Maybe."

"There were some back east. A whole bunch of human one's back in New Ginza."

"Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Did you play with them?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Whenever I'd walk by, they'd stare at me."

Sospes grip on the reigns tightened, "How exactly?" he was fully looking at the boy now. Turning his body even, letting the mare pay attention to the road while they talked.

"Uh...like..." he widened his eyes and dropped both of his hands to his sides. He was staring at the top of Sospes head and the hybrid looked very strange after that. "Sometimes they'll whisper too..."

"How so?"

"I didn't hear them."

"I think you did."

The boy said nothing. They moved on through the barren landscape save the occasional spotting of oribi who scampered along whenever the two closed in or by. Thomas would watch them, eyes dazzled.

Eventually, Sospes said his name, and when the boy answered and turned, he spoke, "Those children. Ignore them. Let the words of those who mock and belittle you away, for they will weigh you down like an mammoths' hoof."

"That's a big weight."

"Yes, it is."

"What..." he breathed, "is there something I can do to make them stop? it...makes me feel awful."

"No...for people such as you and I there is little we can do. Humans they are...well...many beings are cruel to our kind."

Thomas thought on Sospes words. "What's...my kind?"

"Your kind? the Haryo of course."

"Yes. I know you're an orc and a harpie...but...I've never seen another one like me. That...looks like me."

Sospes took a breath in, feeling the steady shake of the horse and the hot sun. The breath escaped him as they came to two winding forks in the road. Left or right. He thought on it, studying the factors and possible consequences of each decision.

"Mr. Sospes?"

He guided the horse left and regarded the boy, "I am not exactly sure, our kind offers many mystery's when it comes to our origins, especially if there are no parents to raise the child. It's more...common than you think."

"Was...I...left alone?"

"I do not know."

"Do you think there are people like me somewhere?"

"I am here."

"I meant...people with...these!" he unfurled the rabbit ears out from his hair where they'd been hiding under. One fell while the other was straightened out.

Sospes saw this, and shook his head, "I am...unsure."

"Do you think there are still some out in the world?" Thomas was saying it with so much hope. So much want in his voice.

Sospes, however, shook his head, "If there are, I'm sure we'll find them one of these days. But..." he pointed a finger at him, making the boy snap to attention. "Always remember to be wary of strangers."

"I know..."

"Remember the story I read to you? the book?"

"The one with the rabbits?"

"Yes. A few days ago."

"Um..." he nodded profusely, "yes. Does...this mean I'm a big rabbit?"

"No...well yes...well n-no. There was something in there I wished you to learn from."

"Oh uh...wait I think I remember now!" he started jumping along the path in his excitement.

"Very good, but calm yourself. What did it say?"

"Uh...oh," he stopped and thought further, "the...whole world will be your enemy. Prince with a thousand enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you." He looked hopefully at Sospes, who nodded and smiled.

Holding up a finger, the hybrid said to the boy, "Be wary, digger, listener, runner, prince with a swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks. For that is the Haryo way, that is my way, and that...that is your way."

Notes: So...while yes I am already making a Gate fic that needs to be updated, this idea I've had of a post war Sadera has not been out of my head for months. But don't worry, this War of Mine is at the forefront of what I wanna write. Sometimes a guy just needs a break from writing 250 pages or whatever crazy number I've wrote by now. (Also new update this month) For people who have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry this will also be getting frequent updates as I have many a plans for this fic. Do expect a shorter word count however because the cast will be slightly smaller. But to all of you thanks for reading, I always appreciate it.